...Bombande, Aning prescribe solution
By Charles Takyi-Boadu
Two experts in the area of security and peace-building, Mr Emmanuel Bombande and Dr Kwasi Aning believe there is more to the increasing violence in Bawku and its surrounding areas than what most Ghanaians think.
Though they both trace the root cause of the problems in the area to its historical antecedents in the colonial and post-colonial era, they believe that the advent of modern party politics and the role of central authority has further deepened the woes of Bawku, thereby resulting in a situation where the undercurrents far outweighed the issue of chieftaincy dispute.
In separate interviews with The Chronicle, each of them made a cursory analysis of the underlying factors that has inflamed passions in the area and prescribed probable solutions which could help to resolve the age-old crisis.
The Executive Director of the West African Network for Peace-building, Mr Emmanuel Bombande believes the issue of the Bawku crisis is far away from mere chieftaincy since that has long been resolved through Supreme Court of the land.
He rather attributes the problem to what he described as a vicious cycle, with each of the communities and individuals who have lost a relative wanting to avenge the death of the relation.
“That vicious cycle is re-enforced every time that somebody is killed”, he noted adding that “the continuing attempt to revenge killings, has now brought us to a web of violence in which we need to break that chain”For him, it is only when we break that chain that anything related to the substantive issue in terms of peaceful co-existence can be discussed.
Because of what he described as an ineffective peace-keeping effort in the Bawku area, Mr Bombande said “the violence in terms of its vicious has not ended and that’s where we need to begin to end the vicious cycle so that the communities can sit down and have an understanding of their history.”
In that history, he emphasised that there is unity since it has succeeded in making natives of the area inter-marry. “The people must now accept that chieftaincy should be viewed as a traditional institution that can unite them and not separate them through a history that was not necessarily their own decision.”
Dr Kwasi Aning who happens to be the Head of Conflict Prevention Management and Resolution Department (CPMRD) of the Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping Training Centre (KAIPTC) in Accra, believes the problem have further been inflamed by the purposes of power and economics, coupled with the issue of arms cartel.
He has thus stressed the urgent need to identify those driving the forces and make them to face the full rigours of the law. “The manner in which we have attempted to resolve this crisis has been very faulty, in terms of the speed with which we are always desperate to rope in the President.”
In conflict resolution, he emphasised that the President must be the last to be roped in considering his position as the ‘father of the nation’ and the respected authority that his office has.
Considering the fact that there are multiple mechanisms of resolving chieftaincy disputes, which has not been exhausted, he said it was unfortunate to bring the two feuding chiefs to the seat of government.
Dr Aning also has problem with the quality of analysis that the District and Regional Security Council have sent to the National Security Council on the basis on which solutions on the situation are being drawn.
For a conflict which has been going on since time immemorial, he noted that we ought to have identified, arrested and prosecuted those who are benefiting from this crisis, stressing that “our inability to do this means that our analysis and understanding of this conflict is not very good.”
“But you also do understand that in this part of the world, the last thing that politician listen to are academics, so I don’t expect people to listen to me, so the conflict is going be with us for quite sometime”, he said.